An unexpected sighting
by SheaHeyKid
Summary: Jim and Pam share a moment, but it wasn't just the cameras that were watching.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own these characters, just borrowing them and their predicament to get a leg up on my own creative efforts.

**Note:** I've never had much sympathy for Roy, but maybe he's worth a little.

If the door didn't slam shut behind him, Roy wouldn't have known how long he'd been standing there. It felt like forever. But the sound of the door hitting the doorframe broke the silence and broke what felt like a paralysis inside him. Jim and Pam turned toward him with a start, and their faces were so predictably shocked. The feeling returned to his legs, which was good because all he wanted to do was get away from there. Other feelings came on too – anger, hurt, surprise and a dawning realization that what he'd seen wasn't entirely unexpected.

He turned quickly and pulled the door open again so hard it smacked the wall and bounced back into him as he stormed through. It closed again before Pam could even get there, but he could here her call to him in that high-pitched, almost panicky voice she sometimes got. He was halfway down to the parking lot before she got to the top of the stairway. He heard Halpert say something to her, something along the lines of "Pam, wait," or "Pam, don't," but he couldn't be sure. In fact he was pretty sure he didn't want to think too hard about Halpert at all at that moment.

He'd just left the warehouse crew at Poor Richard's down the block when he'd come back to see if Pam wanted to join them. The whole walk back he thought about what a nice surprise it would have been for her, how thoughtful she'd think he was to think of her while he was out drinking. But he'd told her he was going home to bed, and he didn't want her getting home and not find him there. She'd worry, for one thing. And she'd be pissed, for another. Half the reason he came back was so he wouldn't have to hear it from her the next day about not going straight home like he said he was.

What he walked in on was the last thing he expected, though. Her and Halpert. That snake. He should have seen it coming, he thought. He did see it coming, though, didn't he. All that talk about a crush a while back, a crush that was supposedly long over. Dudes don't have crushes. But they will scam on your girl, if they get the chance. That skinny worm was going down for this one. Maybe not tonight, he thought, as he reached his truck and fumbled for his keys. Tonight he'd drown his sorrows. Tomorrow he'd deal with Halpert. And her, he tried not to think. He didn't even hear her come up behind him.

"Roy, please wait," she said. "You have to let me explain, please."

She was crying, he noticed, telling himself he didn't care.

"Explain what, Pammy? That you and your little office friend have a thing going on the side? That we're getting married in three weeks, and you're swapping spit with the guy you told me was just a friend? That you've made me look like a fool?"

"Roy, no! It's not like that, I swear," she pleaded with him. "That was the first time anything ever happened. And nothing even happened. We just kissed. It didn't mean anything."

The words still hung on the air when a car door slammed. She and Roy both looked in the direction it came from. It was Jim, driving off. He'd followed her downstairs and had been standing by his car listening and watching. It didn't surprise her that he'd stayed close to look out for her. But as soon as she said their kiss meant nothing, he'd gotten in his car and taken off.

"There goes your boyfriend, Pammy," Roy said, in as hurt and as hurtful a tone as he could muster. "Why don't you go after him? I'm going down to Poor Richards where Darryl and the guys are going to join me in several rounds of drinks while we talk about reasons why I should never talk to you again."

She just stood there and let the tears roll down her face. She was devastated by his words, he could see, but he wasn't ready to let up. He had one more thing to add.

"You know what?" he said, his voice softer and less angry, which only made it harder for her to have to hear. "I may not be perfect, but I was always there for you. I never cheated on you, never even looked at another girl the way I just saw you look at Halpert. I saw that, you know. You didn't just kiss him. You kissed him and you stared at him. I haven't seen you look at me like that in years. You think about that. I gotta go."

He got in the truck, turned the ignition and watched her in his rearview as he pulled away. She was still standing there as he turned the corner. He waited until she was out of sight before he wiped his eyes. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him cry over her. He pulled into Poor Richard's lot and checked himself in the rearview before getting out. No sense going in there red-eyed, though that was how he planned to leave. He walked inside and looked around for a familiar face. Off in the far corner by the pool table he spotted Lonnie tossing darts. He was about to head that way when Jim cut him off by the bar and put a hand on his shoulder.

"We have to talk, Roy, and we have to talk now," he said.

"You're going to lose that hand if you don't take it off me," he shot back. "I don't need much reason to lay you out right now, Halpert, not much reason at all."

"That's true, and I knew that coming here. Hear me out anyway."

The bartender, an older guy who'd broken up plenty of brawls in his day and had the scars to prove it, signaled to a couple of beefy bouncers to be ready for anything. Darryl spotted the exchange, too, and was slowly making his way over.

"Fine, start talking," Roy said. "You know, maybe I'll enjoy hearing how long you've been scamming after my girlfriend."

"She's your fiancée, remember? Sure you do. And yeah, it's been a while since I fell for her. Seems like forever that I've watched her and wondered what kept you two together. I still wonder about that, because it doesn't make a damn bit of sense."

Darryl was close behind now. He'd back up his friend if he had to but he was really there to keep Roy from doing something stupid.

"You're pushing your luck, Halpert," Roy said. He was so angry he could barely see, but he wasn't ready to lose his cool yet. "Is this really what you came here to say?"

"No, you're right," Jim began, not sure where he'd finish. "I came here to tell you tonight was a one-time thing. I've been in love with her for a long time now, longer than I care to admit to myself. But she never knew until about an hour ago. And when I told her, she shot me down, hard. What you saw upstairs, well that was me pushing my luck again. You see, in a couple of days I'll be gone, out of this town and out of her life. I'm moving on. That's all I wanted to tell her tonight. But when I saw her and how beautiful she looked, and I saw you take off and leave her alone looking like that, well let's just say I think you take her for granted sometimes. It set something off inside me. I couldn't say goodbye, not without getting it all out on the table and seeing where it led. But she shot me down again when she told you that what you saw didn't mean anything. So now I'm leaving knowing where I stand. I thought I could give her more than you could. I guess she wants you anyway."

Roy just stood there and took it all in. He wanted to hate this guy. He wanted to want to punch him. But here he was, stepping aside, doing what he knew he could never do in the same circumstance: being the better man. And it all added up to only one thing.

He could take her back so easily, but suddenly he wasn't so sure he deserved her.


	2. Chapter 2

She stood there alone for a while. He wasn't coming back, she thought. He'd been angry when he drove off, angry at her and with every right in the world to be. She'd betrayed him. She was panicked and she wasn't thinking straight and she'd blurted out the one thing she should have known would hurt him. And it did.

"It didn't mean anything." The words played over in her mind. What was she thinking? Of course it meant something. It meant everything. She'd known it all along, but she'd been able to hide those feelings away, in the place where all her dreams slept. But then he'd gone and ruined the whole charade, the carefully balanced dance of emotions and denial that kept her going no matter how hopeless her future seemed. He pulled down the veil that revealed her true feelings, and there was no recovering from that. And now he was gone, because she'd stuck with the lie at the very moment the truth stared her straight in the face.

Roy had walked in on them and seen the whole thing, seen him kiss her, seen her kiss him back and run her hand through his hair. He'd watched while the two of them just stared at each other, and that had hurt him most. But instead of letting him be hurt and letting him deal with that on his own, she went after him and tried to salvage the lie that had already been shattered. And in doing that, she'd basically told Jim she wasn't ready to give it all up for him. "It didn't mean anything." Of course it meant everything. He was her best friend, like she'd just told her mom. But he was more than that. He was there for her all the time when she needed someone, all those times when Roy should've been there and wasn't. She called him a friend like either one of them believed it and he went along because it wasn't his place to tell her how to feel about him.

But he'd won her over long ago, with rooftop moments and drunken stumbles and countless office games to fight the boredom of jobs with no future but a surprisingly rich present. He must have been suffocating, watching her wedding date approach, seeing her plan and make lists and order this and fight with vendors over that. It was why he'd complained. And it was why he booked that trip to Australia of all places two days before. Not only could he not stand to watch her not choose him, he had to fly to the other side of the world two days before.

He looked like he was going to tell her something, something important but not what he'd ultimately said. He said he loved her. No, he said he was in love with her, a more tangible way to say the same thing. But that wasn't what he had in mind. There was something else, she was sure. But what? She couldn't ask him now, though, could she?

She could only stand in the parking lot, no best friend and no fiancée in sight. Poor Roy. It was so clear now. She couldn't marry him. Why wasn't it clear five minutes ago when she'd ran after him in a panic and pleaded with him not to go? He should go. He deserved better, and so did she. They each deserved someone who loved them, not just someone they'd always been with. She started back toward the warehouse. Ryan and Kelly were coming the other way, Kelly going on about every one of the women's dresses while Ryan tried not so hard to look like he was listening.

"Oh my God, Pam! You looked so beautiful tonight. Roy is so lucky," Kelly proclaimed, and not for the first time tonight.

The 7&7s had gone to her head. Ryan rolled his eyes and held up the keys to indicate he was driving her home. Talk about two people who didn't belong together, Pam thought. She half-smiled without really looking up as she walked past them. She needed a ride, but she'd rather deal with Angela's judgmental silence and Dwight's awkward conversation for 20 minutes than spend a minute in Ryan's Corolla listening to Kelly tell her how beautiful everyone looked.

Inside, the games were going strong, despite the fact that it was getting near midnight. The service guys from Vance Refrigeration had taken over the blackjack table, but she spotted Dwight, Angela, Kevin and Phyllis around the craps table, where Bob Vance seemed to be making a big show of his dice rolls. She started to make her way over when she saw Michael out of the corner of her eye. He was coming over, but not with his usually intent look he had when he was rehearsing whatever one-line he'd stolen from or from his tear-off desk calendar to try on her. He looked, she thought for a moment, sad? Two dates with two beautiful women on the same night, his dream, and he looked sad?

"I saw Jim before," he began.

She tensed up. He wasn't going to give her advice about how to handle a crush, she hoped.

"He was pretty upset," Michael went on. "I stopped him and asked him where he was going. He just said he had to settle something. And find something out too. I told him it was bad form to leave early on a night when lady luck was calling the shots, but he said he'd be back soon and just pulled away."

"Pulled away?" she said. "You mean you talked to him right before he drove off? What else did he say? Did he say where he was going?"

"Pam, I know I'm not half as savvy in the ways of love as I like to pretend. Hell, tonight I could barely juggle two dates – not as much fun as you'd think, by the way. But you and I both know Jim's got it bad for you. I spilled those beans to you long ago. Well, right now I'm not your boss or even your coworker. I'm just a friend who cares, and I think you should consider what you'll be giving up if you go ahead with this wedding. Jim looked tonight like a guy who was ready to give up. If he thinks Stamford will answer all his problems, he's got another thing coming."

She wasn't totally listening, but what she heard made sense. It was hardly advice on a par with keeping an eye on her "ticking timebags," or any of Michael's other sage bits of wisdom. It actually made sense. What was worse was he'd seen things so clearly even before she had. The man who subscribed to Cracked Magazine and kept a Carnac turban in his desk drawer knew more about her love life than she did herself.

"Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that," she said. "But I think it may be too late."

And with that she walked away, finding the bar and ordering a rum and coke that she downed in almost a single gulp. She asked for a refill that she sipped more sensibly as she took up a position next to Kevin, who was fully engaged in conceiving lewd rhymes with which to cheer on Bob Vance, who'd gotten himself on a bit of a roll, so to speak.

There was a pit in her stomach, thinking about all the time they'd lost. She could have been with him long ago, but she'd blown it. How she'd ever explain to her family and friends and Roy's family what had happened, she didn't know and didn't much care at the moment. Roy was too angry to even talk to her, and she couldn't blame him. It was Jim who'd put himself out on a limb like that. He'd extended himself so many times. And he'd given it one last shot. Then it hit her. What had Michael meant about Stamford solving all Jim's problems? Was he leaving? Without saying goodbye? He couldn't.

Just then she saw him by the door, his eyes fixed on her. He hadn't gone yet.


	3. Chapter 3

9/18

It was better than he even hoped, and he hoped the moment wouldn't end. It had to, though, and it did. But then she looked him in the eyes, her fingers still running through his hair, and he saw something there. She was feeling for him what he'd felt for her for so long. After the moment they shared and they way she was looking at him now, there was no way she could be feeling any other way he thought.

Then everything went crazy.

The door slammed, and they both looked over to see Roy standing there. He couldn't have looked angrier. Jim tensed up, ready for a fight. But instead, Roy just turned around, swung the door open hard and walked out. And Pam went after him. Maybe it was just out of habit, but Jim was wondering to himself why she did. Hadn't everything changed, he thought in the few seconds it took her to cross the office and run down hall after Roy. Hadn't she discovered that Roy wasn't the one for her, Jim thought. So he went after her. He didn't know what he'd say when he caught up with her or what would happen between her or Roy, or more specifically, what would happen if he caught up with Roy himself. He was a few feet behind her at the top of the stairwell, and he could see she had every intention of following Roy down.

"Pam, don't go," he said. "You don't have to."

She turned and looked at him, tears running down her face, then looked back down the stairs.

"I have to, Jim," she said. "You don't understand. I can't just…"

There those words were again, "I can't," he thought. That was her response when he told her he loved her. Well, he hadn't taken that as answer then so why start now. Jim followed her downstairs and outside where she ran past his car and toward Roy's truck. He stayed back, leaning on his car. Close enough to see and hear and intervene if necessary. And close enough to wait. He couldn't hear everything they said, but some of it carried over to him. Roy said something about heading to Poor Richards to meet Darryl. She was pleading with him not to go. Then something she said got him like a shot to the gut. "We just kissed," he heard her say. "It didn't mean anything."

That was all Jim had to hear. It became very clear to him that he should leave. In fact, he felt like he couldn't leave fast enough. He got into his Corolla, looked at the two of them in his rearview mirror a second and pulled off. He wasn't sure where he was going. He just wanted to drive, anywhere. He thought about Philadelphia. It was late, but he had friends there. He could be there by 2 a.m. and crash in the car until the sun came up if he had to. And that's just what he would have done if Michael hadn't stepped out of seemingly no where, waving him down like he had something to tell him.

"Jimbalina, where in the heck are you off to?" he said. "Bad form, my boy. Bad form indeed to walk out on lady luck on Casino Night."

"Michael, please, not now," Jim said, taking a tone he didn't usually take with his boss, however deserving. "I've really got to get going. Early day tomorrow, alright?"

"Understood," Michael replied. "You are a dedicated work…"

Just then Michael looked up and saw Pam and Roy across the lot arguing. Something clicked. He thought back to that night on the cruise, when Jim had confided in him. That always meant a lot to him, that Jim trusted him. And even though he'd gone and spilled the news to the entire office a few days later, he was sure that bond of trust was still solid. Or maybe not solid, but salvageable. Or not. But they were friends, he told himself.

"Jimbo," he said. "Remembered what I told you that night after Captain Jack handcuffed me to the stern of the boat because that crazy fool jumped ship during my motivational speech?"

"Michael, everyone remembers that night. It was epic," Jim said, exasperated.

"I told you to never, ever give up," he said. "Do you remember that?"

"Yes, I remember," Jim said. "Michael, is there anything else, because I've really got to hit the road."

"Nope. You are cleared for exit, sir," Michael said. "But keep that in mind, OK?"

Jim pulled out onto the main road, shaking his head at the bizarre exchange he'd just had and at how it contrasted with what had happened just a few moments before. He tried to block Michael out of his mind and focus on something else, but he couldn't. Everything he'd wanted for so long had been within his grasp, and he lost it yet again. He just wanted to forget everything and go get loaded somewhere. "Never, ever give up," the words rang in his head like they had that night when he got home from the booze cruise.

Dammit, why was he hearing them again? Why now? He'd come so close and he was giving up, taking off because things didn't go the way he wanted them to. Dammit, Michael was right. He was giving up, and at the worst possible time. He owed her more than that, he thought as he swung a hard left across two lanes and pulled a U-turn. Luckily traffic was light. He was on his way to Poor Richard's. He was going to lay things on the line. He didn't know how things would go with Pam, but he had to settle things with Roy first, no matter what.

When he walked inside, he saw Darryl first, at the bar ordering tequila shots.

"What's up my man Halpert?" Darryl greeted him. "Have a shot."

"No thanks," Jim said, leaning in close. "Can we talk a minute?"

He explained what had gone down. Darryl and Roy were tight, but Jim was taking a chance that Darryl was a good guy like he thought. He even admitted that he and Pam had a history, that what happened tonight didn't start tonight.

"Roy's on his way here, and I've got to do what I didn't have the guts to do before," Jim said. "I'm not looking for a fight, but I might find one anyway."

"That you might," Darryl said. "You know you'd be better off just getting the hell out of here now. You really think you're gonna settle anything like this?"

"I don't know, but I owe myself to give it a try," Jim said. "And I probably owe Roy something too."

"You're a good man Halpert," Darryl said, knocking back a shot, "a fool, but a good man. I'll watch your back when Roy gets here."

When Roy walked in a few minutes later, Jim approached him, they exchanged words and Jim did the hardest thing he thought he'd ever do. He stepped aside. Roy had gone from angry to surprised to defeated, and Jim wasn't quite sure why. He was stepping aside, after all, doing the right thing.

"You realize what I'm saying, don't you, Roy?" Jim said. "I'm leaving. I won't be here to mess things up with you guys. I'm out of the way."

"Halpert, something's real clear to me right now that hasn't been clear for a long time," Roy said, after a long pause. "I'm the one who's been in Pam's way all this time. You should go, go find her, talk to her, whatever. Just go, alright."

And as Jim turned toward the door, Roy added, "Go get her."


	4. Chapter 4

_Note: This is the final installment. It feels a little weird since the whole premise was speculation on how Season 3 would pick up, and now Season 3 is three and a half hours under way. But anyway, for an ending, I tried to leave the future pretty open. Hope you enjoy! Again, none of this is mine but the manipulation of someone else's characters and storyline._

He couldn't sleep. He could only lay there and think of her and stare at the ceiling wishing sleep would come and give him a break from the endlessly repeating pattern of what if's that kept swimming through his brain as he played the events of the night before over and over and over. How had it come to this, he wondered, when everything had been perfect for so long.

Roy threw off the blanket and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and stared out at the street light through the living room window of his brother John's apartment. He'd come here because he didn't know where else to go and he couldn't go home. It wasn't anger anymore that kept him from facing her. It was hurt, true, but even more than that it was a lost feeling that things had been wrong before they came crashing down tonight.

She kissed him, and she looked at him like they'd been together forever.

He got up and walked to the bathroom, trying to be as quiet as his 225-pound frame allowed on a creaky wooden floor. Jen, his sister-in-law, was a nurse who started the day early. Roy didn't know what time it was, but he wasn't surprised when he turned the corner and nearly ran into her in the hallway. Even in that pre-dawn sun mixed with fading streetlamp light, she could see that he wasn't right.

"I didn't even hear you come in, but John told me what happened," she said, extending a hand to him. "It's going to be OK. You know that right? Things happen for a reason."

Roy laughed. Darryl of all people said something similar last night, before Roy bailed out on his plans to drown his sorrows in tequila. It was funny, he thought, how that advice sounded so similar coming from two such different people. But both had been looking out for him for longer than he realized and knew him better than most.

"I know that, but it doesn't make it easier," he said. "You working again today?"

"Hospitals don't close on Saturdays," she said. "But I have a little while before I have to go. Have a cup of coffee with me? I want to talk to you about something."

He sat in the small apartment's tiny kitchen. They could afford bigger, but John and Jen were socking every penny away for a down payment on a house and a nest egg that would allow them to live on just John's plumber's salary when they were ready to start having kids. But they somehow made this place cozy and nice, like a home. Roy realized his and Pam's place, which was similar in a lot of ways, never felt like that.

Jen poured them both a cup of coffee, set down the carafe and looked him in the eye and said, "She loves you, Roy, but she's not for you. I don't think she knew it, but you did, didn't you?"

Jen always did cut to the chase. The words hit him like a slap in the face.

"Let's just say that when the shock wore off, I felt something like, well I wasn't totally surprised," he said. "The two of them together, it just seemed like I'd been staring at it all along and not seeing it. And the worst part is that I tried so hard to be angry at her, but I couldn't keep it up. It just wasn't real."

"Drink your coffee," Jen said. "However this works out, and it will work out, you're going to get through this. Better that it happens now than after June 10, right?"

He gulped the coffee and thought about how right that was. They'd been together for 10 years and engaged for three. How much more time does it take to know you belong together, he wondered.

Jim liked watching her sleep, even though he could barely keep his own eyes open. She'd fallen asleep surprisingly quickly, considering how upset she'd been, and she'd slept as soundly as anyone could. He half-expected her to toss and turn or worse, call out Roy's name. He couldn't blame her if she did. But she just lay there looking perfectly peaceful, wrapped in one of his throw blankets, her sweatshirt hood pulled up over hear head, faint streaks of makeup around her eyes the only remnants of the crying she'd done.

She'd fallen asleep in his arms, but he'd gotten up to get her the blanket and a pillow and since then he'd just sat beside her and watched her sleep, wishing morning wouldn't come. Things might be OK, but he still wasn't sure.

He'd lain it all out last night, took the biggest gamble – the only gamble, probably – of his life. If he was going to lose her, he thought at the time, it wouldn't be without a fight. But he couldn't control the way things played out. She went after Roy, which hurt him bad. Then Michael of all people inspired him to stick it out and see what happened. And then he'd gone and said all those things to Roy, and Jim still couldn't believe that didn't end with him getting punched out. And when he showed up at the warehouse again and caught her eye, it was like they'd met for the first time all over again.

That second kiss there, in front of everyone, well that was even better than the first, if possible. It held no doubts, even if it was less intimate. Phyllis had hugged both of them, and Kevin gave him a thumbs-up that on any other day Jim would have taken for a lewd gesture. Even Dwight, in his weird way, surprised him by offering Jim relationship advice, that and the use of the farmhouse for the night. Jim opted to ignore both.

He brought her back to his place, not knowing what to expect. They talked a while, beating around the bush because neither of them was sure what the other was thinking. Could they be together? Should they wait? What about Roy? She hadn't really settled anything, though she was amazed when Jim told her about going down to Poor Richard's and confronting him. They didn't really settle much of anything. Jim told her about the transfer, and Pam said she already knew. The memo had come across her desk for Michael's signature. It said pending employee approval, so she knew it wasn't definite. Either way, she didn't blame him. She was just waiting to see what he decided.

He wanted to be with her so badly, and he could tell she felt the same way. But they'd been through so much that night already, it would only have complicated things. So they just talked and held one another. She cried some, and he consoled her and they began to share some of the millions of feelings they'd been keeping from one another for so long. It would take more than one night to get to know each other in a way that didn't involve always hiding how they truly felt. And it would take some getting used to.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him staring at her. She smiled and yawned and rolled toward him. He stroked her forehead, brushing her hair aside and told her to go back to sleep while he ran down to the corner deli to pick up a few things to fix breakfast.

Outside his apartment, the sun was up and people were walking to work. Jim started toward the corner when he nearly bumped into Ryan. Kelly lived a block away

"Yeah, well, so much for taking things slowly," Ryan said, as Jim smirked. "I heard you made quite a scene last night. Michael left me four voicemails before 7 a.m.

"Yeah I guess we did," Jim said. "You know Kelly's a good girl. She really cares about you. Take my word. Once you find that, you do not want to let it get away. Ever."

They bumped fists, and Jim walked to the deli while Ryan headed to his car.


End file.
